Theories of History

There are three ways to look at history and they are: Accidental, Conspiratorial, and God’s Plan being implemented.

                                          Accidental History

Accidental History is the belief that all the events in history, and those going on today, are brought into existences by the random interaction of individual as they live their lives.  People organize themselves into groups to obtain goals that no individual can achieve.  These groups are brought into being by different means.  Zbigniew Brzezinski once wrote, “History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy … increasingly, policy makers are overwhelmed by events and information.”

Mutual need to hunt and gather led to the formation of tribes.  And then when mankind moved from a hunting society to an agricultural based existences their came a need to form armed forces to protect the new way of life from the old way of life.  That is those who still believed in the way of the hunt to make a living found easy picking in those who stored food and goods in one place.

A strong man can cohere weaker men to obey his dictates, and use those men to force more men to follow his will.  This mechanism gave rise to the likes of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar.  Cities sprung up to afford the people the protection of the around the keep of the early strong man, around the walls of the fort or castle.  With the grouping of people specialization in labor started to happen. 

Instead of the tribe doing everything with its on members, and if they could not do it, it was not done.  All wealth belonged to the tribe and the individual was at the mercy of its dictates.  If the tribe decided someone was a deviant they were force from the tribe to live or die, mostly die, as best they could.  But with the rise of the cities and the use of trade to obtain thing you could not provide for yourself the individual started to have the means to stand apart from the tribe or strong man.

How some people found that they were better at doing certain things then were other people, or that they just would do something that others would rather pay for them to do instead of doing it for themselves.  Now we found ourselves with boot makers, candle makers, tailors, farmers, butchers, and so forth and so on.  This specialization in labor gave rise to money for barter could not sustain a very high level of  specialization for taking in a pig, or a chicken for a hat, or coat would turn the tailor into a farmer and require more and more of his time to care for his livestock.

Money is nothing more than a symbol, a symbol of the worth of goods produced or service preformed.  At first we thought that the value was in the medium of exchange itself, i.e., gold and silver.  But to limit our trade to the amount of gold and silver available to trade for other goods and services limits the amount of goods and services that can be exchanged.  However, it took a long time for us in the west (the Chinese did it back in Kublai Kong’s time) to develop a money divorced form metal.  The first step was to use things like a tote stick.  As Glyn Davies said in his Origin of Banking and Money, "Money originated very largely from non-economic causes: from tribute as well as from trade, from blood-money and bride-money as well as from barter, from ceremonial and religious rites as well as from commerce, from ostentatious ornamentation as well as from acting as the common drudge between economic men." 

                                       Conspiratorial History

Why am I discussing money in a description of the Theory of Accidental History?  Well because it leads me into the next theory of history, and that is the Theory of Conspiratorial History.  It was the Knight Templar that first used paper to transport gold from one place to another.  People going to the Holy Land faced many hazard, their ship could sink, bandits could rob them, or the Muslims could take their gold if they had to carry it on their persons. 

What the Knight Templar would do is let a pilgrim come into one of their castle and drop their gold off in return for a receipt for the gold which would redeem the same amount of gold from a Knight Templar in the Holy Land.  Of course they did this for a fee.  They got a special dispensation from the Catholic Church to be exempt from the Bible’s condemnation of usury in 1129.  Then in 1307 on a Friday the 13^th (been considered unlucky ever since) King Phillips IV of France call the Templars in for a meeting from all over Europe, arrested them, tortured them and burned many of them at the stake. 

Some of the Conspiratorial believers think that the survivors Knight Templar went on into hiding and form the Freemasons.  It is held that the Freemasons recruit and nurture into power people who will further their goals of world domination.  They point to the fact that many of our Founding Fathers, such as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and George Washington were Freemasons; as well 14 of our Presidents have been Freemasons.

Freemasons are not the only forces seen as directors of our history, there is the Skull and Cross Bones to whom the Bushes belong to at Yale from Prescott on down to W.  Skull and Bones has been dominated by about two dozen of the country’s most prominent families—Bush, Bundy, Harriman, Lord, Phelps, Rockefeller, Taft, and Whitney among them.  Bilderberger David Rockefeller is not only the founder of the Council of the Americas; he was also a founder of the Trilateral Commission. Rockefeller had this to say in his Memoirs:

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. "

George Bush has also on numerous occasions been referred to as a Freemason.  The confusion as to President Bush being a member arises from the swearing in ceremonies at his inauguration. President Bush took his oath of office on the George Washington Bible which belongs to St. Johns Lodge in New York City. Because the Bible belonged to a Masonic Lodge many writers assumed he was a Freemason. The Bible was used at the request of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.  Franklin D. Roosevelt who certainly saw many monumental events occur during his consecutive administrations has been quoted as saying: "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, it was planned that way."

More prominent on the list of those who conspire to determine history are the Illuminati.  The Illuminati began as a secret society under the direction of a Jesuit-trained university professor. On May 1, 1776, a council of five men, one for each of the points on the pentagram, formed what was called “The Ancient and Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.” They were high order Freemasons (Luciferian), thoroughly immersed in mysticism and eastern mental disciplines like the Siddhi’s of Pantanjali. They deal with developing the super-powers of the mind. But, beware, the conclusion if you practice diligently, is that you are a god (Genesis 3). Their alleged plan and purpose is world domination for their lord. They are alleged to be behind the primary motivational forces encouraging Global Governance, a one-world religious ethic, and centralized control of the world’s economic systems (the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank). It was their plan that, in order to enforce their encroaching “governance” plan, they would require a Global Military force (U.N. Peacekeepers) and a World Court to prosecute all who oppose them (The International Criminal Court). This would all be accomplished by brainwashing the gullible masses through control and manipulation of beliefs, the means of production, the press, educational curriculum, and political leadership of the nations.

Remember when at the close of my description of the Theory of Accidental History I ask, “Why am I discussing money in a description of the Theory of Accidental History?”  Well it is through money that the Conspiratorial work their will upon society at large.  The rich and powerful do not become rich and powerful then decide to become a member of the conspirators.  No the conspirators pick them from an early age and make them rich and powerful to work their will upon the world.

Lincoln was not a freemason, "Lincoln was wont to describe the men opposing his greenback currency policy as 'the secret foes of the nation.' The battle between Lincoln and the sound money men of the day was well known. In 1864 he was elected on a platform that contained a plank declaring for national currency. "Lincoln was the most powerful reformer of his day. Had he lived he would have established a national currency system in the United States. "I have two great enemies," Lincoln once said, "the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy." (quoted from This Difficult Individual, Ezra Pound, by Eustace Mullins)

From the Book LINCOLN MONEY MARTYRED

Corroborative Evidence By Gerald G McGeer The following article and editorial taken from the Vancouver Daily Province of May 2, 1934, gives further light on the subject treated in this book.

OTTAWA, May 2, 1934 (CP)-Abraham Lincoln, the martyred emancipator of the slaves, was assassinated through the machinations of a group representative of the international bankers, who feared the United States President's national credit ambitions-and the plot was hatched in Toronto and Montreal. This was the information imparted to the House of Commons committee on banking and commerce Tuesday by Gerald G. McGeer, K. C., Vancouver lawyer and advocate of social credit, during a five-hour attack upon the present financial system.

"The evidence discloses that instead of being a patriot, John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln in a Washington theatre, was a mercenary," Mr. McGeer declared. Basing his beliefs upon an exhaustive study of unexpurgated copies of the evidence given by secret service agents at Booth's trial, he declared the only group that could benefit by Lincoln's death and who had the money to carry out such a plan, was the international bankers.

"The South worshipped Lincoln and looked upon him as the only one who would secure them justice in defeat. If they wished to kill him they had splendid opportunities and could have secured a thousand who would do the job," McGeer said.

Hatched in Canada

"According to the evidence given at the trial, the plot to assassinate Lincoln was first disclosed in Montreal and Toronto," Mr. McGeer said. "A group of men representing- the Confederacy were operating in Canada with headquarters in those cities. During the winter of 1864 and 1865 they were approached by an unknown group with the proposition to assassinate Lincoln.

"They were not from the South nor connected with the Southern government, because representatives of the South in Canada hesitated to consider the proposal until it had been submitted to the South for approval.

"Booth was engaged to organize the assassination. It was proposed to the Southern government as a plot to kidnap Lincoln and hold him as a hostage for the purpose of bargaining for terms of settlement.

Cost No Factor

"In accordance with this plan a request was made to confer commissions in the Southern army upon those who were to engage in the actual kidnapping or assassination of Lincoln."

"The men responsible for instigating the crime were unknown, but in evidence given at the trial they were described as a group which could undertake anything without regard to cost. “Booth was never a Southern patriot in the real sense. He was never in the Southern army, and one of his associates was a deserter from that army.", shortly before Lincoln was assassinated one of the men engaged by Booth declared that he was going away on a visit and that he would return with plenty of gold."

"Lincoln was wont to describe the men opposing his greenback currency policy as 'the secret foes of the nation.' The battle between Lincoln and the sound money men of the day was well known. In 1864 he was elected on a platform that contained a plank declaring for national currency. "Lincoln was the most powerful reformer of his day. Had he lived he would have established a national currency system in the United States. " There was only one group in the world at that time who could finance anything they cared to attempt without regard to cost, and who had any reason to desire the death of Lincoln."

"They were the men opposed to his national currency programme (sic) and who had fought him throughout the whole Civil War on his policy of green-back currency.”

"They were the men interested in the establishment of the gold standard system and the right of the bankers to manage the currency and credit of every nation in the world.”

"With Lincoln out of the way they were able to proceed with that plan and did proceed with it in the United States. Within eight years after Lincoln's assassination silver was demonetized and the gold standard money system set up in the United States."

"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the laws.

"Usury once in control will wreck any nation.”

"Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of Democracy is idle and futile."

The Right Honourable W.L.MacKenzie King,
Prime Minister of Canada (1934)

"The Congress shall have Power... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures..."

But Congress totally abrogated this constitutional power and responsibility in 1913 with the adoption of the Federal Reserve System. Yet the first major triumphs of the money power in America came much earlier – first with the first and second Banks of the United States (defeated by Jefferson and Jackson respectively) – and then with the National Banking Acts of the 1860's. Though the Treasury still coins and prints our money under the authority of Congress, neither the Treasury nor the Congress has the slightest thing to do with its issue or regulating the value thereof. That's done exclusively by the Federal Reserve.  While the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and the board itself, are quasi-government entities, they aren't answerable to Congress, and the Federal Reserve Banks themselves (Our so-called "central bank") are privately owned and operated—and, they are not not-for-profit organizations. Federal Reserve Notes are now our "legal tender". The controversy is whether private bankers should have a profitable monopoly on the issue of our currency, charging our government (us), interest on every dollar issued and circulating, or should the government itself issue currency, interest free, solely on its own ample authority? The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to do so.

The thing about the actors in this conspiracy is that they do not do anything illegal. The Federal Reserve System is a good example of this.  Everything is legal. They’re stealing your money and mine legally.  Look at all the tax money that is going into bailing out the banks.  It is not the money that the owners of the 12 reserve banks earn on their investment, it is the power that they gain via the banks system that has been removed for the government and placed into private hands that point to a conspiracy.

The conspirators play both sides in every conflict, their drive is for money and the power that money brings to them, their goal is to control the world through one government.  They start wars and end wars; they create governments and destroy them.  It really seems to me that we are in the process of an attempt to change the type of government that runs the U. S. into one that control it, and every aspect of its citizen’s lives

                                     God’s Plan Being Fulfilled

At this point I will go into the Theory of God’s Plan Being Fulfilled.  We must remember that the real enemies are spiritual in nature, not forgetting that these things shall come to pass! A one-world government is prophesied in the Bible. God has sovereignty and not allowed all these developments, designed them into His overall plan. There will be increasing desolation and tribulation in the decades to come, and the people of God will be terribly persecuted before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. Already, more persecution and martyrdom of faithful Christians and Jews has taken place in the last century than in all previous centuries combined.

Just as God directed the heart of Pharos to employ Joseph to be the second highest ruler under himself only, and then harden the heart of another Pharos to let Moses show the might of God, God will work his will to direct the hearts of the conspirators.

A Dissertation On Jesus and Wine

A Dissertation On

Jesus and Wine

I have given considerable though as to whether or not Jesus made fermented wine for his first miracle.

It is true that in Habakkuk 2:15 God’s word forbade giving alcoholic wine to someone else. says, "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to the bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness." But I would have you look at the whole verse, not just the preamble that says “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to the bottle, even to make him drunk, “ but to also consider the motive behind the warning that is, “that you may look on his nakedness."   It does not say woe unto him that serves wine at a party to make for joy and good cheer!

Here is the question, should we call drinking alcohol a sin and not only refrain from drink any but condemn those who do as sinners?  Romans 14:21, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.”  Please note how Paul uses meat-eating on the same level with wine-drinking in this verse.  Why is it alright to eat meat that is cloven of hoof and does not chew a cud now which was clearly prohibited in Deuteronomy 14:8, “And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass.”  Why would those who condemn drinking wine as a sin not condemn eating port just as vehemently?

Remember those who called the Lord Himself a winebibber because He partook of the fruit of the vine. Conversely, they said that John the Baptist had a devil because he didn't drink! Luke 7:33-34 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! Note how Jesus puts eating and drinking on the same level.

Now to His first miracle, Jesus did made wine at the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee when they ran out. We know from the comments of the governor that it was not "grape juice". The men had well drunk (it does not say they were drunken) and the Lord provided more wine. John 2:7-10 , “Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.”

They are those who claim that Jesus would have never made alcoholic wine because of

the bane that is has laid upon mankind.  That it is ridicules to believe that He would have

done such a thing.  To this argument I have two points to make, first it is not alcohol that is evil, rather it is the misuse of it by some people that is bad.  To claim it is the “Demon Rum” that cause a man to drink away his life and kill a family while driving drunk is no more then saying, “The Devil made me do it” and removes the blame from the man and puts it upon a object that can never move itself. 

Secondly I would point to the use of wine by the early church:  Wine was used in the Lord's supper and in New Testament churches--and some folks were abusing it. As is pointed out in 1 Corinthians 11:20-22,  “When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.”  Note that Paul did not tell them to drink wine juice instead, he told them to go home and indulge if that had the urge.

Today we call people with alcohol problems, "alcoholics", and say that they are suffering from a disease and it truly not their fault, that God made them that way, I.e., in their DNA. The Bible calls 'em drunkards and this is sin! I Corinthians 6:10, “Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Ephesians 5:18, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess…” Titus1:7, ...[bishop] not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;“ 2:3, “The aged women...not given to much wine…” (see also I Timothy 3:3, 8) 1 Peter 4:3..., “we walked in... excess of wine, revellings, banquetings…”

Thus I would say to you that it is not drinking alcohol that is a sin, rather the surrender of one’s soul to its pleasure that is the sin.  For as Jesus says in Mark 7:14-23, “Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.’ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ‘Are you so dull?’ he asked. ‘Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.’(In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.") He went on: ‘What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.’”

Again in Matthew 15:10-20, “10. And having called the multitudes to him, he said to them, Hear and understand. 11. What entereth into the mouth polluteth not the man, but what goes out of the mouth polluteth the man. 12. Then his disciples approaching said to him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when they heard that saying? 13. But he answering, said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. 14. Let them alone: they are blind leaders of the blind. And if a blind man shall lead a

blind man, both will fall into the ditch. 15. And Peter answering said to him, Explain to us that parable. 16. And Jesus said, Are you also still void of understanding? 17. Do you not yet understand that whatever entereth into the mouth passeth into the belly, and is thrown into the sink? 18. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart itself, and they pollute the man. 19. For out of the heart proceed wicked thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, calumnies. 20. These are the things which pollute the man. But to take food with unwashed hands polluteth not the man.”

It is true that Jesus was talking about food in this passages, but fermented wine was a common drink at meal time in this era, and would it not stand to reason that if Jesus thought that drinking alcohol defiled a man He would have made an exception, like “ Do you not yet understand that whatever besides wine that entereth into the mouth passeth into the belly, and is thrown into the sink.”?

One last point and I will go to the argument for believing drinking wine is a sin.  Are we under the Law or are we under the Blood?  I was, having never been a Jew, never under the Law.  My salvation comes from Jesus’ sacrifice not in my abeyance of the Law.  Remember in Romans 14:21 where Paul says, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything hereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak."  Paul was not in these words endeavoring to put any bounds upon the liberties of God's people for as he wrote to the churches of Galatia to warn them that some teachers were seeking to enslave them unto the very things from which they had been delivered. He counsels them to tenaciously guard their gracious freedom, and to refute those who bring a false gospel of works and rules. Because it is for freedom that Jesus Christ makes us free, we do well to learn what that means. When legalists seek to drag us backward into rituals, codes, traditions, and laws,”. 

So what is he saying when he says, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine”?  Is he saying that your salvation will go to hell if eat meat or drink wine?  (Oh, and by the way, why has meat been dropped in this admonition?) No, a thousand times no!  Your efforts cannot undo the works of Jesus, nor can your efforts save you.  Your salvation is yours because God gave it to you through the blood of Jesus.  What Paul is saying is, maybe if by my restraining myself from some of my pleasures that around those whose faith may be weak or nonexistence will not use me as an excuse to walk away from the Lord.  Remember Paul said, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine” he did not say it was a sin to do either.

My Love Affair With Horses

 

Writing is like painting in that you use words to paint a picture.  The choice of words and phrases can be likened unto the lines and shades in a sketch.    The idea is formed, sometimes in advance, sometimes as you go along, developing itself as the words grow.  The mind, like a seeping spring, contently turning over thoughts, thoughts of this and that which sometimes turn into a stream that channels itself into a story or pome.  Today I would like to tell the story of my love affair with horses.

I never was around horses as a child, though at time I have told that lie, and did spend a day riding a trail horse while I was in Guantanamo Bay as a young Marine.  Other than that the only other time I had straddled a horse was on a trail ride at Stone Mountain, GA back in the mid-60s as I was absconding to Hawaii with the law not far behind (another story).  That was a nice ride, there was my brother, who had taken us to the airport in Atlanta, the girl who was making the trip with me, sorry girl but you name has long ago left me.  I could divert here and tell the story of the reason for that trip, the woman who was making it with me, and out adventures in Hawaii until we decided that we were not meant for each other, but that would be digressing from this story, my love affair with horses.

Back to Stone Mountain, It was a beautiful sunny day, hot out, but nice in the shade of the trees we were riding under.  We had paid our fees, and they assigned us horses.  Having never saddled a horse I did not know enough to check the girth to insure it was snug enough.  About half way through the ride, on a part of the trail where there was a deep ravine to one side, and trees right up to the edge of the trail on the other side, just where the trail made a hard left turn, my saddled slipped to side where the ravine was.  Of course I had not learned how to re-center a saddle by shifting my weight in the stirrups yet, it was my second ride.  I was in my mid-twenties on this ride, and I left horses for a very long time, going on to Hawaii, becoming both a sailor, buying and living on a 35 foot sloop for two years, and a hippy, again a different story and one I may tell sometime.

Time marched on its want say anything way; I came back from Hawaii, did my bit in the pin to pay the government back for having the audacity of using Marijuana, and was picked up after I was paroled by the woman who was to become my first wife.  To cut this story way short, after 21 years she left with the kids to Florida, and I stayed in Tennessee.   I want say any more about this period of my life for now, except to tell you that there was never any love between us on my part.  I married her because she got pregnant and told me flat out that if I did not marry her that she would abort the child.  I could not abide that, so we married in a Court House in Chicago, not even a kiss after the “I do”, I was pissed, but decided to do the best I could both for her and the child(ren), my bed, I made it.

Jump forward 22 years, the ex gone, and me alone for the first time in a very long time.  I started going dancing a lot, my ex never liked to dance, and playing around with a lot of different women.  Though out my marred life I had escaped the unhappy part of my life by going to school, when you are working your way to an understanding of calculus, deferential equations, statistics, political science, computer science, you don’t have time to dwell upon how your life could have been happier.  At the time I was working for an OEM firm that made Medical Imaging Equipment, and was sent to Ervin, California on a regular bases for varying amounts of time from a week or two, or a month or more depending upon the complexity of the equipment that they were training me to be able to maintain and repair should it break.

In Tustin I found this two-stepping bar, Coyotes Joe’s that I liked to hang out at and dance when I could.  It was there that I met Rena.  I was 49 when I met her, and we hit it off.  I was with a date at the club when I first saw her, she was smashing.  While my date was occupied with some of her friends, I struck up a conversation with Rena.  I told her that I was there with someone, but that it was just casual but I would not dump my date while I with her, and all of that aside I told her that I would love to go dancing with her next weekend, and gave her my hotel room and phone number.

Well for a long time I did not dance with anyone else in California.  We did lots of things together, and hooked up again on me next trip out west.  Besides dancing we went to Disneyland, to Medieval World, Wild West World, walked on Laguna Beach, and thoroughly enjoyed each other company.  On that second trip she road back to El Paso with me, I always drove out on these trip for the chance to see the country, we spent the night there, found a place to go dancing, and the next morning I dropped her off at the airport so she could fly home, and I drove back to my part of the world.

Rena ran a travel agency, and got a lot of deeply discounted, sometimes free, plane tickets.  One week she flew out to St Louis, and we met and spent the day visiting Grant’s Farm, spent the night together nearby, and she flew home in the morning.   A month or so later she got a ticket to Nashville, and came over for the weekend.  I wanted to do something romantic with her, and on the way from Humboldt, just a little north of Jackson, I noted a billboard advertising Loretta Lynn’s Farm and Stables Horse Riding.  That would do it, I though, and this thought changed me for the rest of my life.

I picked her up at the airport early that morning; we spent the morning at Opera Land Hotel, had lunch, and then headed back to my place, which was not very much, then just a one bed room apartment.  Most of my money was going to pay off the debt that my ex had ran up on my credit cards before she left, I had credit cards that only she knew I had!  I do not want to get off onto a tangent about that, but it still galls me when I think about it.

On the way home I swung off the Interstate, and took her up to Loretta Lynn’s Farm, she thought that horseback riding was a great idea.  I paid out $30 for the hour ride; we were the only ones on the trail other than the guide that took us around.  When he asked us what type of horse we wanted Rena said a calm one, and I said a spirited one.  Vicariously I was a cowboy, because of all the western I had watched, see them mount, and ride, neither my mind nor my body hesitated, and I road just like I had been doing it all of my life.  I was fifty years old that day, that day I fell in love with horses.

That love grew on me though over the next summer.  Rena and I had decided to move in together, she would sell her house in Long Beach, and on my next trip over I would fly out, and she would pack her van and a U-Haul with the stuff she wanted to bring with her, store the rest, and I would drive up back to Tennessee.   Now there is more to this story about her selling her house then her just wanting to move in with me.  Her husband had left her, but her two grown sons had not, and both were still living with her.  She was at her wits end trying out how to get them out to live on their own, and this was a perfect opportunity.  If she sold the house, and left the state then they would have to make it with their own effort.

You know how it is that what seems perfect in the glow of infatuation but flaws are reviled as familiarity wares in?   Rena first taste of a side of me that she did not like came as we were diving out of California and into New Mexico; she wanted me to stop for gas before we started down that long stretch of road through the land that connect California and New Mexico.  I looked at the gauge, remembered about where the next station was, and said that we had plenty.  As we went through that beautiful landscape the gauge got nearer and nearer to empty.  Rena was chewing me out for not having stopped for gas before, and just how pissed she was going to be if we ran out of gas.

 Not all that’s well ends well, for we came into a gas station 20 or so miles before we would have ran out of gas, but it pointed out to Rena the different in our risk aversions.

We made it all the way back to Tennessee without any more disagreements.   Moved her into my apartment, and set up housekeeping.  I found another place, much nearer then Loretta Lynn’s place, Chickasaw State Park, down near Mississippi almost strait south from Humboldt.  Every weekend that we were not out doing something else we would go riding Saturday and Sunday for an hour or two.  They only charged $10 an hour instead of the $15 that Loretta did (no, I never got to meet Loretta).

All this summer we rode hours and hours on many different horse, but winter was coming on.  Rena had never driven in snow, and the thought of riding with me in the snow gave her no comfort.  That along with all the other cultural shocks she had endured, no bike trails, no one to play tennis with, no street light, not being able to go to a restaurant and drink coffee and read the newspaper half the morning without them wanting you to leave the table for other patrons.  All of this, along with some other things, which I won’t go into, led her to decide to move back to Long Beach before winter set in.  We parted on good terms, met a few more times at various places for a night or two, and talked over the phone until she got a boyfriend who did not want her to carry on her friendship with me any longer.  Now it has been years since we have spoken.  We took my Mother and Aunt Ulane to New York just before she went back, that trip in of itself make another nice lone story, and the picture above was taken on that trip.

After Rena left I kept going to Chickasaw Park every weekend, and riding.  After a while the two boys who worked as trail guides and wranglers for the lady who ran the concession told me that I should just work with them, ride for free, and get paid $25 a day for doing it.  Now my day job was paying about $60 K, but I jumped on it with the understanding that service engineer job had priorities.  I also confessed that I would have to be taught how to saddle a horse.  I was 51 years old.

Looking back through the years I have had many good and bad stretches in my life, the time I spent riding at Chickasaw was one of the better periods of my life.  I would spend the week working on CTs, Nuclear Cameras, RF Rooms, and sometimes MRIs.  Then on Saturday and Sunday, and whatever holiday, I would drive the hour it took to get to Chickasaw, help round the horses, 30 to 65 depending upon the time of year and how many renters we had coming for rides.

We had to walk out into a 50-60 acre pasture to herd the horses back in to a job that they were not always eager to do.  After running them into a corral, we catch and take them out one at a time to be brushed and tacked up.  Each horse had its own rig that it had to be mated with, in all the time I was there I never did get as good at matching a name to a horse as those two boys were.

After the horse was tacked up we would tie then to the picket line.  The horses would wait there until some renters came, and then we would match the horses to the renters according to three criteria:

The size of the renter, the ability of the renter, and whether or not this horse should be beside that one or not.  Some horse liked each other, some would tolerate others, and some just hated some horse and would pick a fight if every next to that horse.  Almost all riders had to have a trail guide to go with them.  Only a few, who we could trust not to gallop the horse the whole way would we let go out alone.  Small groups would get one wrangler, medium size would get two, and large groups would get three.  There were only three of us, so any more renters coming while we were all out had to wait until the last group got back.

When we got back and dismounted the renters we took the horses strait to the water troth and let them drink their fill.  This myth of a horse colic if it is allowed to drink too much water is just that, a myth, and long as the water is not very cold they can drink their fill without any harm.  After they drank their fill we would take them back to the picket line at the end of rotation so they could get as much rest as possible before their next trip.  Each trip was about an hour or more depending upon how much you let the horses run.

We would start the rides at 8 in the morning; take the last renters out at 5 in the evening.  When we were done for the day we had a long feeding troth that went the length of the barn that we would pore rice brain in, the horses were allowed to eat their fill, and would, on their own, leave the barn when they had their fill and run to the pasture, when the last horse decided to go, we would shut the gate, and go out and ride for fun.  We did a lot of what we called rough riding.  Trey to take a horse up a hill way too step to climb just to see how far he would make it up before spinning around to go back down.  Taking horses down ravines way too steep to climb back up, so steep that the horse had to slide on its butt the whole way down.  We would race down the dirt roads in the park in the dark as fast as the horses would go, unable to see anything ahead, but knowing that your horse could.  That is as close to flying as I ever came.

After finishing up Saturday night I would drive back to Humboldt, get cleaned up, and then go dancing.  Sometimes I would go to a joint up in Dyersburg, just south of Kentucky.  Other times I would go to a club in the Holiday Inn in Jackson.  Yet other time I would go to the joint that the sheriff in “Walking Tall” had his fight with.  I had a lot of dance partners, and got laid quit often, but I always got up in time to be back at Chickasaw in time to round up the horses on Sunday morning.

I bought my first horse there an Arabian they called Ahab but I renamed him Gallivant.  The reason I bought his was that the way I was riding if I was to hurt a horse I would have much rather it have been my own horse then someone else’s.   When I transferred to North Carolina from Tennessee I brought Gallivant with me, he is buried at the tree line in the west pasture, in spite of the hard riding he had to do with me he lived to be 35 years old, 20 of those years with me.  I got my second horse in Tennessee also, Tazmania, who still riding the trails with me; she was two years old when I got her back in ’95.  That makes her about 17 now, and she is still eager to take me any where I might wish to go.

This has been the longest love affair in my life, other than with the marines, out living all the ones with all of my women, with sailing, mountain climbing, thou my love of women is longer and not yet dead.  I hope yet to have a woman in my life that I hold dearer than my horses.

Introspection

I reckon for me the problem with emotions has not been being unable to sneak up on them, on the contrary, they are the one to run crashing through the forest insisting on their own way.  Whenever I think of the United States Marine Corps reverence wale up within me for all those who served, this reverence flows over to all the people who have served in the other armed branches. I know that others serve in different ways but I have a special regard for these.

No, I have never had problems finding my emotions; my problem has been not allowing them to run away with me, carrying me so deep into the forest that I may not be able to find my way back. Anger can take me into the deepest darkest part of the forest; sometimes I get in so deep and dark that it is very hard to find my way back. Then from that anger many time hate would raise its ugly head and drive my action in the most unreasonable ways.

Sorrow sometimes comes unbidden driving all other thoughts from the woods of my mind until it was sated with sorrow and laid down to rest. This is when I go deepest into the jungle of my mind; back so deep that I become completely encumbered in sadness to the point I no longer wish to see the light of day. Then the awe of being will sweep over me unbidden, leaving me is a state of joy that had no room for any other distraction, as when love overcame me when I first looked into her eyes.  No, I am not bipolar, not a manic depressive, these are just the range of emotions that we all experiences and have to deal with.  For me there has been moments of inner peace, moments of turmoil, but mostly when I lie in doubt, fear, concern, and in dreams laced with periods of unconsciousness, I strive in spite of doubt, and like Paul I pray, “Oh Lord I believe, please help me with my disbelief.”

While happiness comes and goes, mostly life is filled with neither sadness nor happiness; rather it is the mundane that drives our lives.  The prosaic that gives it meaning, the stuff we have to do but rather we didn't have to bother.  Cooking and cleaning, cutting the grass, or washing the car.  It takes an epiphany to understand that these things are the things where we spend most of our lives, and that their importance is as great as the vacation which we so yearn, laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, hiking in the mountains, floating our boat, or riding our horses.  Joy, if not happiness, can come from the feeling of a job well done, a task completed, one more chore completed.

I have learned to live with my feelings, work and strive within my limitations.  Concerning myself with what I can do, and not dwell too much on what I cannot do.  True, you can do anything you set your mind, but there are two caveats to that.  First you have to start from where ever it is that you are to achieve your desire, and second you have to figure out how to do it.   I wanted to be a renowned author, have written a column for a newspaper, many pome and essays.   But yet I have failing short of the dream, for it is one thing to write and yet another to gain a readership for what you write.

I wanted to be rich, but the best I achieved is to be well off.  I wanted to fall in love with a woman, who loved me, and we would live together the whole of what life we have given to us together, and you see how well that has come about.  Now I content myself with my horses and dogs, and while I still dream of that woman I realize that my chances of finding her grow slimmer and slimmer.  What I thought about this one does not matter, what she thinks is the proof of the pudding.  They do say that if you want true love to get a dog don’t they?

I have a clearing within this forest of my mind now, all the undergrowth has been cleared out, and as long as I stay within the clearing I am at peace.  It is when I venture out into the land of “could have been”, “what if”, or “if only” that the woods start to close in on me.  I have many good decisions, and many, for sure, bad ones.  I cannot go back and change nary a one, so those paths are best left untrod except for some brief sojourns made for some enlightenment now and then.  I have found that if I try and banish a memory that it will just fester and burst out regardless, so I give each a short amount of my attention when they come up, then tell myself that I must think of something else, and then do it.

Introspection, physician heals thy self, that is, attending to your own fault, rather than pointing out the faults of others.”Gnōthi seauton”   Know yourself first and once you do you will not be concerned much about what other’s think they know about you.  Knowing yourself also give you that starting point in achieving that which you would like to do, and then come the harder part, figuring out how to bring it into fruition.  But all bets are off if it includes the heart of another.

A Hermits life, why?

A Hermits life, why?

No entanglements that's why.

Hermits have to please no one

Other than themselves.

If they love, they love from afar.

Having absconded from the world

No one can disappoint them,

Nor can they disappoint anyone.

Foregoing all the pleasures of society

They no longer have to suffer

The slings and arrows hurled their way.

And temptation of the flesh

Has been delivered far away.

A hermit’s life has its appeal,

But comes with a large price to pay.

Balancing the pros and cons

Of living among them or withdrawing

Is a task we all take on and

We don’t have to go live in a cave

To be a hermit.

We can withdraw into our minds

To avoid any chance of disappointment.

Burnt once, twice shy can grow

Into a never again defense,

Betrayal by deceit, broken promises,

Being left for another, or

The death of one dear

That left way too soon.

Can make us retreat

Shutting out any new relation

That brings a risk of disappointment.

To love is to be vulnerable.

When you develop feelings,

Those feelings can be hurt.

But the price you pay by avoiding

Any chance of being hurt

Is all the pleasure of being close,

Of being loved, of being needed.

Whether the price is too great

Is settled in your mind.

Be careful of judging the new by the old

Do not make a new interest

Carry the sins of the old,

But judge wisely for as

Many a hermit has returned

To the world wishing

That they had never left.

But some have come back to only

To find more disappointment and pain.

As much as I may wish to,

I cannot tell you what to do,

I can only wish what I wish,

And even if you drop your shields

There is no guarantee

That I would be the one

Who’s arms you would come,

But still I would urge you to

Come back to a state of mind

Where you can risk getting close again.

I pray that might be me

That you would take you next

Chance with, a chance on happiness

With another man.

For my feeling grow stronger

With each passing day.

© 

Rexx

Why

If I thought it would help
I would stand up and shout,
If I thought it would help
I would fall to my knees and beg.

But I have done all that and more,
To bring an us into our lives.
And yet you remain ensconced in your world
That seems to have little room for me

Except for the few hours,
Every now and then,
We float in a universe
All of our own.

Moving to the music as one
Two souls cleaved together
A melting of body and mind
So complete that it leaves me confused

As to why you can’t make room for us
In the rest of your life.
Not all of your life,
But a call here, and a trip there.

                    Why?

©


Rexx

Do It Again?

Every now and then I remember way back when
And if I would have done that instead of this.

Then I realize that had I changed that
None of this could be.

Had I stayed in the Corps
I could have been killed,

And for sure I would not have met
The mother of my children.

That would have led to another world,
One without the ones I love dearest.

So a screw up leads to a great results?
Oh she is long gone now,

Another choice I made that maybe I shouldn’t?
That led to the three I love the most.

As I sit and contemplate how
I could have led my life better

They come up missing
Had I chosen a better way.

And had I choice the better way
Would it have been better?


Avoiding the mistakes I made
Would not preclude my having

Made other and worse mistakes.
Then comes the realization

That had I do it all over again
With the same experiences,

Information, hopes and dreads
I would have chosen the same way

No matter how many times I had
To repeat my life.

© Rexx

Maybe she does

Confusion in the mind

With the face projection certainty

Acting like you know what you are doing

When you don’t have a clue

Hoping for an insight

As you go along.

Your feeling grow stronger

Breeding concern

Maybe she does

Maybe she doesn’t?

And in the meanwhile

Time marches on.

More time apart

Then together

Give the mind

Plenty of playtime.

Wondering this

And wondering that

Will the Us

Come to be

Or no item to appear.

Oh how I hope

But if wishes were horses

Beggars would ride

And frogs would have wings

So as not to

Bump their rear end

As they hopped on the ground

So wish as I as may

And wish as I might

And wishing with all my might

It is outside my hands

That she likes me enough

To be my girlfriend

That she likes me enough

To want to be side by side

I have offered all I can offer

I want what I want

And she wants what she wants

Those wants to have to intertwine

For there to be an us

The only prayer I make is

That God’s will be done

For as much as I want her

I do not want her

If she does not want me.

If she can take me as I am

As I take her as she is

Then maybe an Us is born.

It is the waiting to know

That brings the confusion

And knowing that brings peace

Does she

Or does she not?

The petals of the daisy

Have their say

Both sides of the fence

First one way, yay.

Then the other, nay.

One more prayer I make

Please woman

Tell me what to do.

Should I go

Or should I stay?

© 

Rexx

Respect

Respect, a word that we use a lot, just what does it mean. To me respect is something I give everyone, but is something that everyone has to earn. That is to say that I will respect you until you give me reason not to. I will not insist upon our meeting that you earn my respect for you, I grant it as a condition of your humanity.

However, respect comes in different degrees and types. When I get in my car and drive down the road I respect the right of others to use the same highway and follow the rules of the road not just because of the law, but out of respect for other drivers. At the same time I demand that they return that respect. Cut me off and slow down in front of me and you are liable to have me zip around you and return the favor. Pull out onto the Interstate and drive very slow so that I have to slow down, and then you speed up will probably make me flip you off as I pass. I could go on and on, but you drivers know well what it is I mean.

As a form of respect I trust everyone to be what it is they say they are until I have reason not to believe them. Then in the words of that wise old sage, “Fuck me once shame on you, fuck me twice shame on me.” We are polite to one another because of our underlying respect for one another. When you bump into someone it is respect for that person that leads you to say excuse me, pardon, or I am sorry. Those who don’t do this are not only rude, they are disrespectful. Bumping into me and not saying excuse me is one thing, but to shove me out of your way is fighting disrespect.

To use certain disrespectful words the Supreme Court has called “fighting words” and is not protected speech. This respect has to be taught, it does not come naturally. If your parent did not teach it to you, the school of hard knocks will!

If someone is talking, and you just start talking over them, this is not only rude, bur highly disrespectful of the one who was speaking. If you walk into the middle of a conversation and start your own you are showing your disrespect for the ones talking and the one who was listening. And if you are in that conversation and leave the one you were in to continue on with the intruder you are disrespecting the person you were talking to initially. Maybe you don’t give a damn about their respect, but if you do, either for them or theirs for you, don’t hurt their feeling like that. Hurt feeling is what disrespect generates, and many time a rise of anger because of the perceived feeling of disrespect.

If you were sitting and talking with someone you like, and someone else walks up, and you just jump up and you abandon the conversation, and take off with that person without a moment to explain your action, if it were you that were left would you not feel dissed?

We live in a world of perception, of how we perceive others, and how they see us. How well our perception matches reality is a testimony to our insight. How we deal with other’s misperception of us is a judge of our character. The effort that we go to correct a misperception deepens upon who the one that is misperceiving. I do not care if most people think that I am an arrogant fool, for I know that as people come to know me they realize what other’s perceive as arrogant is actually confidence in myself and my abilities. But for some people I do care how they see me, it is way too late to change me into that which I am not, but a greater explanation what I am and how I act in the world may be in order.

The degrees of respect we allow others differ by that person important to us, and their station in life. Respecter of persons? Yes, for sure. Most of us hold those who are, or have, served in the armed forces in a higher respect than those who have not served. Of course the converse is true; some people despise the military and will spit on anyone, at their own peril, in uniform.

Until we have reason not to we give the police a special respect, not only because they can take you to jail, but because they put their lives on the line keeping the great non-respecters in line. Those who have no respect for your right to own and keep your property, and given the chance will take it for their own, those who would take your life for whatever you might have on you, those who cheat and defraud you. Those people have respect for the law too, but not as we do. They will afford respect as it furthers their cause, they will say excuse me when they bump into you, that is if they are not getting ready to rob you. They follow the rules of the road unless they are running from the law. Praise God that they are not the norm.

We give our parents a higher respect they others because of their position in our lives, if we respect our children we will teach them why they should respect others. We respect the priests and preachers because of their position in society, as we do school teachers, and politicians. Politicians, ah that’s a tough one. We hold them in higher or lower respect depending upon whether or not they are of our particular persuasion.

Now to the respect that we give the one we hold dear, that respect comes from the love that we hold for them. Because of the relation we owe more respect, not less. And as we give it to them we expect it back. Asking for respect is not the same as controlling. If we are dating if you start kissing some guy on the dance floor you have dissed me, and for sure hurt my feelings, and probably made me angry enough to at the very least leave the joint. If I were to do the same thing with someone else I would be just as wrong, and should be ready to break up before I ever did such a thing. Now there is a different between actual disrespect and perceived disrespect, but not to the one who feels dissed.

Respect is very important to me, I take offense whenever I feel I am being dressed, what action I take depend on upon not only the degree of disrespect, but upon the situation. I am not going to fight a fight I cannot win unless I have to. That fight might be with the asshole that shove me out of his way, or pushed his way between me and my girlfriend, in the latter case I would be much more likely to throw a hand. Or that fight might be with my girlfriend, if wining the fight means losing the girlfriend, then I will swallow my pride, let it go, and try to explain it later.

© 

Rexx